Future Crimes Part 33

Denny shuffled in his seat, looked over at the back door once more.

"You know the estate out back of here? Quarter mile or so?" I nodded.

"Well, the other day they found this old guy out there that'd been dead for seventeen months. Seventeen months. You believe that?

Imagine, so little presence, so little life .. ." He held his thumb and forefinger together and tapped out the words slowly in the air. "..

. no one cares, no one knows, no one gives a f.u.c.k when you're dead."

His eyes drifted into the distance for a moment before snapping back.

"Anyway, right after they found him, they threw out all this s.h.i.+tty old furniture, hundred years old, most of it. Stuck it in the garbage room.

And it drives the dogs f.u.c.kin' wild. They're jumpin' around, going crazy, trying to get in the garbage, kicking up a tornado. Somehow they eventually get in and they're going mad chewing on the mattress, ripping it apart. No one knows what the f.u.c.k's happening, what's sending all these mutts crazy. There a sudden doggy craze in duck feathers or what?" He picked up his coffee and took a sip.

"Anyhow, the caretaker eventually manages to chase the hounds away.

Shoots in the air or something', I don't know. And he's curious, you know, he wants to know what's happening, what turned the dogs on like that. So he takes what's left of the mattress for a DNA scan." Denny leaned over the table conspiratorially.

"Now get this." His eyes flicked momentarily to the back door again.

"Turns out when they took the guy's body outta there, or what was left of it, part of his head got left behind on the mattress." He jabbed his finger on the table.

"That's what the dogs were going wild over. Flesh, human flesh.

f.u.c.kin' wild about it." He leaned back on the seat, a big grin slapped across his face.

"You ready to order now?" I asked him.

It was another two hours before we hit the holding camp.

The camps were originally built as low-cost housing projects for the dispossessed in the '80s and '90s, but the standards were such that within ten years they began to fall apart. Coupled with the general migration of businesses and family homes to the new green areas, the projects were eventually abandoned and now served solely as holding camps.

At the entrance to the camp was a low redbrick building with a flat roof, the control center. I left Denny to unload the shuttle while I let myself into the center and logged in the vagrants.

Denny was leaning against the wall waiting for me when I stepped back outside. A plastic cigarette poked out from between his lips, I nodded to the pad of donor release forms stuffed in his pocket.

"You got someone lined up?" I said.

"Some old guy. Lives over by the school." The cigarette bobbed in his mouth.

"Old guy?" I said. The kidneys of most people over fifty were usually shot to f.u.c.k by years of additives and expellants; even on the black market they were difficult to s.h.i.+ft.

He took the cigarette out of his mouth.

"There's some desperate people out there."

I raised my eyebrows.

"You're tellin' me."

I looked at my watch: almost eleven.

"It's getting late," I said" Where do we find this guy?"

Denny gestured for me to follow him, and we went into the camp.

We walked across a gravel car park painted silver by a hawk moon, our footsteps counterpoint to the random noises of the camp at night. The car park led to a sheltered walkway with doors hidden in darkness on our right. Shadows moved across the edge of my vision, and occasionally I would catch a glimpse of a face, a slice of skin pale in the moonlight.

I followed Denny along the walkway until we came to a dark green door; a pale light shone through the peephole. Denny took out his notebook and checked the number.

"This is the place," he said. He rapped his knuckles on the door. A cool breeze blew along the walkway and I could smell burned food and urine.

I turned away to avoid the smell, and that's when I saw him.

A group of men had emerged from a stairwell at the end of the walkway, no more than fifty feet away.

They threaded themselves between abandoned cars and headed for the opposite corner of the square.

They shuffled over the gravel car park, their footsteps a continuous growling noise. As they pa.s.sed beneath a streetlamp, each face was washed in pale orange, and there he was. There was no mistaking the twist of the nose or the eyes that burned with the fear of a trapped animal.

Billy Hendry, the man who had arranged the killing of my son.

I stepped off the walkway and headed toward the group. At first no one seemed to notice me, but then I made the mistake of calling out, "Hey!

Wait!," and my voice was like a gunshot in the still air. The group fragmented and ran in all directions.

Hendry cut loose for the stairwell he had appeared from, I knew that just beyond was an old strip mall and a group of tenement blocks that was like a three dimensional maze. If he reached that, I would lose him for certain.

I took off after him.

As I ran, the only sounds I could hear were the rasping of my breath and the violent crunch of my boots on the gravel. I reached the entrance to the mall with Hendry still in my sights, fifty feet ahead.

And then he fell; in the darkness he tripped and went flying, stretching out his hand to break his fall and skidding across the tarmac. I heard him cry out in pain.

And then I made a mistake.

I slowed to watch him, thinking he was trapped. I slowed to a jog--and then he was up and running again, limping slightly but having lost none of his pace.

Seconds later the ringing sounds of his footsteps disappeared into the maze and into the night air.

I had lost him.

I bent over, my hands on my knees, and breathed deeply. The air seemed to burn in my chest; perspiration ran into my eyes. I stood up and looked around, walked toward the mall. The beating of my heart echoed from the buildings around me.

I came to the point where he had fallen and lowered myself to one knee and peered at the ground. I could just make out .. . what? I took out my pen line torch and shone it over the ground. Drops of blood appeared like rubies in the dust.

I stood and looked around again. I thought about going into the maze, but the chances of finding Hendry--if it was Hendry, I had only glimpsed the man briefly; the speed with which he had taken off suggested he was guilty of something, but was it Hendry?

I looked at the ground in front of me, drawing circles with the torch beam around the drops of blood.

I took a handkerchief from my jacket and placed it carefully over the blood; tiny red flowers bloomed in the cotton. I then took a plastic evidence bag from my jacket and dropped the handkerchief into the bag.

I put the bag in my pocket and headed back to the camp.

Denny was sitting in the cab of the shuttle when I reached the car park. A solitary lamp burned above the control center, and all I could see were his hands nipping the top of the Zippo. I knocked on the gla.s.s. He lowered the window and peered down at me, his face deep in shadow.

"What the f.u.c.k happened to you?" snapped Denny.

"I saw--" "I lost him. That old guy, remember? He was watching us from upstairs. I heard him rattling the window when you scooted. He musta thought we were the goon squad or something', scared the s.h.i.+t outta him--" "Denny--"

"--the f.u.c.k's going' on?" He leaned out of the window and glared down at me. The ridge of muscle along his jawline pulsed violently.

I took a deep breath.

"I saw him. Hendry--" "You saw Hendry? Why-Why didn't you say? I coulda--" "I'm tellin' you now," I said, keeping my voice level.

"Okay?"

Denny withdrew into the cab. I heard a rustling sound, and then his Zippo flared, splas.h.i.+ng his face with white light. He lit a cigarette and smoke drifted from his nostrils.

"Hendry. He was in that bunch of vagrants across the way. When we were waiting for the old guy?" I pointed vaguely in the direction of the stairwell.

"Scaring the s.h.i.+t outta him," muttered Denny, still rankling from my knocking him back' Hey lose the f.u.c.kin' att.i.tude, okay? I'm talkin'

'bout the guy that whacked my son, not some f.u.c.kin' meltdown that p.i.s.sed in your pocket."

"Hey, I didn't mean--" I pushed his objection aside.

"I chased him into the maze, but..." Thoughts ran away from me.